Ice wine is at risk

There will be little or no ice wine this winter, according to reports.

“It’s just not cold enough” producers are saying. This is especially the case in Germany, home of the fabled wine, where temperatures have rarely dropped below 8°C, apart from this week.

Winemakers in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer wine region are stating that it is unlikely that Eiswein, as it is known in Germany, will be produced this year with temperatures in the Mosel being much warmer than this time last year. The minimum temperature re­quired for ice wine production is -7°C.

Ice wine is a type of wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing a more concentrated grape juice (must) to be pressed from the frozen grapes. This results in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine.

There was a good ice wine yield last year, which led many producers this year to hang on as long as they could. But this year the chances of harvesting grapes for ice wine are very low as there is some advanced rot on the grapes meaning that temperatures would now have to reach at least -10°C so that they are totally frozen at harvest.

Across the northern United States and Canada the story is fairly similar, with ice wine production down by at least 40 per cent. In Niagara the ice wine harvest is in danger not only due to abnormally high temperatures but also because of significant rainfall during autumn.

Although most Niagara ice wine producers also make table wine, considerable rainfall forced growers to pick the thin-skinned Riesling grape early leaving nothing for ice wine.

Due to the labour-intensive and risky production process, resulting in relatively small amounts of wine, ice wines are generally quite expensive.